


Tsukishima's Playlist

by sounds like gibberish (preciselypotter)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Crushes, Fluff, M/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-16
Updated: 2017-04-18
Packaged: 2018-07-24 07:11:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 14,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7498938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/preciselypotter/pseuds/sounds%20like%20gibberish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The background music to Tsukishima Kei's life tends to start up whenever a certain annoying runt is around.</p><p>  <a href="%E2%80%9Ddreamer1084.lofter.com/post/1dd355cc_f9e0964%E2%80%9D">Chinese Translation</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ghengis Khan

**Author's Note:**

> Thing 1: I’ve always thought that Tsukishima would prefer western music…not because Japanese music is bad! But he seems like the type of guy to listen to music he doesn’t necessarily understand the lyrics to because he likes the way it sounds. Also because he’s a little pretentious, don’t you think? Adorably so.
> 
> Thing 2: The song lyrics and song titles have nothing to do with the drabble itself, more like, I wrote whatever came to mind while I played that specific song on repeat. I went more with the energy than anything else.

Five o’clock in the morning, Kei gets a phone call.

“I think I lost my shoes.”

He can barely open his eyes. “Who is this?”

“Hinata.”

“Why are you calling me at this time?”

“I’m always up this early.”

Kei rubs his eyes. If they were open, he’d be glaring. “I,” he says slowly, “am going to murder you. I’ll hide the body well, and I’ll sleep peacefully at night for the rest of my life.”

“Didn’t you hear me? I think I lost my shoes!”

“I don’t care.”

“Tsukishima—”

He hangs up. It’s the most satisfying thing he’s done in weeks.

Thirty seconds later his phone rings again.

“Hinata, I really will kill you.”

“I’m outside your house.”

Kei pauses. “What?”

“I’m outside your house right now,” Hinata repeats. “Like I said, I think I lost my shoes and—”

“And what, precisely, do you think I can do about that?” Kei asks, sitting up in bed. He slides his glasses on with one hand, missing his ear the first attempt. “We don’t have the same shoe size. Your shoes aren’t at my house. You’ve never been to my house—hang on. How do you know where I live?”

He gets out of bed and balances on the balls of his feet for a second as the cold floor gives him a shock.

“Yamaguchi told me your address.”

Kei adds Yamaguchi to his list of murder victims.

He opens the door to his room and steps out into the hallway. “Right. When did he do that?”

“Before I came over here.”

“What?” Kei pauses mid-step. “You asked him that early?”

“I was already up,” Hinata says again, sounding exasperated. It’s a real irritant, because of the two of them, Kei is the only one who should be feeling anything close to exasperation.

“I understand that,” he says through gritted teeth, “but Yamaguchi was probably sleeping. Like me. I was asleep when you called me.”

“No, Yamaguchi is always up that early, too.”

“No, he isn’t.”

“He is. We do early morning practice together, so I know.”

It’s very, very annoying that Hinata knows something about Yamaguchi that Kei doesn’t. He’s Yamaguchi’s best friend and should know these things.

Kei reaches the foyer and slides his feet into a pair of his brother’s bulky clogs. They’re a little small but they mostly fit.

“I’m at the door,” he says. “Hang up.”

“Wait, Tsukishima—”

He hangs up and pulls the front door open.

There’s Hinata, as promised, with his phone still pressed to his ear. His breath billows out in visible puffs, and behind him, a bike is propped up against the tree in Kei’s front yard.

“You’re really here,” he says. “Amazing.”

“Amazing?”

“How much I want to kill you right now. It’s amazing. I don’t think I’ve ever been this motivated in my life. Now I have something to put on my university applications.”

“Oy, Tsukishima!”

“Be quiet,” says Kei. “You’re at someone else’s house at five in the morning. Everyone else is asleep here. Use your brain for once.”

“Can I come in?”

“I just said to use your brain.”

Hinata scrunches up his face in a frown. “But I lost my shoes and—”

“You know, you keep saying that, and I still have no idea what that has to do with me.”

“I called Yamaguchi,” Hinata says with exaggerated patience, “because I couldn’t find my shoes this morning when I was packing my things for the day. I asked him if he’d seen any shoes lying around in the club room. He said no, but he checked his bag and found his shoes and yours inside. So, I think I lost my shoes and you accidentally took them home. Can I come in and check?”

Kei crosses his arms. “How was I supposed to get that from you losing your shoes? Explain yourself better next time, you insufferable midget.”

“I’m not going to lose my shoes again, so there won’t be a next time.”

“Ugh,” he mutters, and steps back to let the insufferable midget inside.

He stops Hinata in the middle of taking off his boot. “Wait here,” he says.

“Why?”

“Because I’m not going to let a stranger into my house at five o’clock in the morning while my parents are still sleeping.”

“I’m not a stranger! I’m your teammate!”

“You’re a stranger to them,” Kei points out. “Stay.”

“Jeez, Tsukishima. I’m not a dog.”

_Don’t be so sure of that_ , he thinks.

Kei kicks off Akiteru’s clogs and steps into the living room, where he dropped his sports bag last night. He hefts it and lugs it back to the foyer.

He drops it in front of Hinata. “Go ahead and look,” he says.

When Hinata kneels down and unzips his bag, he thinks better of it.

“Hang on.”

He kneels down too and pushes Hinata back a couple centimeters.

“I’m not going to steal anything.”

“Shut up. It’s my bag, so my rules.”

And there they are. A pair of shoes that are much too small for Kei’s feet.

Hinata lets out an excited noise that has Kei slapping a hand over his mouth to shut the idiot up. Their eyes meet and Kei does his best to transmit every last drop of his irritation through his gaze. With the way Hinata’s eyebrows rise, he may have done his job.

“There,” says Kei. “Now go away.”

“Hah?” Hinata pulls back from his touch. “If you’re up already, why don’t you come to early morning practice with us? Yamaguchi is probably already there with your shoes.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Why? It’s not like you can go back to sleep now, right? You’ll just have to get up again in an hour for regular morning practice.”

Kei glares. “I hate you.”

Hinata’s grin is a too-early sunrise. “I’ll wait here for you while you get ready!”

If he doesn’t get ready, it’ll be a real hassle to explain Hinata’s presence to his parents later. Kei has a feeling this is one fight he’s already lost.

He sighs and goes back to his room to brush his teeth and change.


	2. Wrong Time Wrong Planet

Hinata is crouched in front of the vending machine with his arm inside the drop basin when Kei and Yamaguchi round the corner.

“What are you doing?” Yamaguchi asks.

“I paid for chocolate milk, but it’s not coming out.”

Kei snickers. “What are you, a child? Why are you getting chocolate milk?”

Hinata looks up at him with pink cheeks. “I’m buying it for a classmate!”

“Riiiiight,” says Kei.

“Have you tried shaking it?” says Yamaguchi.

“The vending machine?”

“Mm.”

Hinata removes his hand slowly. “I didn’t think of that.”

Kei snorts. “Well, don’t. You’re too small and weak to make anything happen.”

“So you do it,” says Hinata.

“Me? Why should I?”

“I’ll buy you a drink.”

“What sort of offer is that? The vending machine isn’t even working, apparently. I’d just be doing you a favor for nothing in return.”

“Tsukishimaaaaaa,” Hinata grinds out.

He gives Hinata a taunting smile. “You’re so small, you could probably climb inside and shake it loose, right?”

“I was _trying!_ ”

“Oh my,” says Kei. “You aren’t serious, right?”

Hinata’s eyes flash. “I paid for it, so why shouldn’t I get it?”

As hilarious as it would be to see Hinata get stuck inside the vending machine—god help him, that would be a treasured memory of his high school experience—something tells him Daichi would get really angry at Kei for letting that happen.

“Move aside.”

“Huh?”

“Move over,” he says. “I’ll deal with it.”

“Why?” Hinata says suspiciously.

“Because you’re going to buy me a drink, right?”

“But you just said—”

“Hinata, don’t argue with him!” Yamaguchi urges.

Hinata scrunches his face into something skeptical, but he gets up from his crouch on the floor and steps away. Kei strolls up to the vending machine and stares it down.

He used it yesterday. It should be working. Hinata’s probably just stupid.

Kei hits the button for chocolate milk; the screen flashes at him to pay ¥250.

“Yeah, yeah,” he mutters. “Okay.”

He grips the vending machine’s edges and tilts it back a little. It’s _really_ heavy.

Not that he’s going to give that away.

Kei shakes the vending machine slowly from side to side. It’s less of a “shake” and more of a balancing act. He does not want to drop this thing. Would they suspend someone for that? He doesn’t want to get suspended for helping Hinata out, of all people. Supremely uncool.

As Kei lowers the vending machine back to its resting position, he hears a loud “thunk!” towards the bottom part.

“Woah!” Hinata exclaims. “You got it!”

He scrambles to Kei’s side and crouches down to stick his hand in the drop basin again and pulls out a carton of chocolate milk.

“Look!” he says, and holds it up for Kei to see. His smile is blinding and slightly open-mouthed as he looks straight up at Kei. “You’re really cool, Tsukishima!”

“Ugh,” Kei says on reflex.

“Nice, Tsukki,” says Yamaguchi. Kei looks over his shoulder to see Yamaguchi giving him the thumbs up.

He gives a single nod to his friend before glancing back down at Hinata, still in a crouch by his legs.

“Where’s my drink?”

“Oh!” Hinata’s hand goes to his back and he pulls out a wallet that looks like a strawberry.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” says Kei.

“What?”

He points. “You’re a high school student.”

Hinata turns as red as his wallet. “My little sister gave it to me as a present!”

“This and chocolate milk. Are you sure you’re not a middle schooler?”

“Tsukishimaaaaaaaaaa!”

Hinata jumps at him but Kei takes a step back. Hinata’s head nearly brushes the ceiling before he lands on his feet.

The little monster.

“Yeah, yeah,” says Kei. “I want lemon-flavored sparkling water.”

Hinata grumbles incoherently to himself as he pulls coins from his childish wallet and tucks them into the vending machine’s coin slot. Kei smiles to himself.

It’s just too easy to rile Hinata up.

“There,” Hinata says as he hits the button for Kei’s drink and it clonks into the drop basin.

“Get it for me.”

“Hah?”

“The least you can do is get it for me,” says Kei. “I mean, I _did_ save you from getting stuck inside a vending machine. Besides, you’re shorter than me. You barely have to bend down to get it.”

“Oy—”

“Or do you not want to give me what you promised?”

Hinata glowers, which is about as intimidating as a Pomeranian. “You suck, Tsukishima.”

“Oh?” Kei replies, smirking. “Is that a no?”

“You super suck.”

“That doesn’t sound like a no.”

“Sucky-shima,” Hinata grumbles as he bends down to pull out the sparkling water for Kei, who can’t help but to smirk victoriously.

At least, until Hinata stands up and starts shaking the drink up and down so fast his hand is a blur.

“Oy!” says Kei.

Hinata’s smile is the same as when they win a match. “See you at practice,” he says, and thrusts the bottle into Kei’s hand.

Hinata skips off down the hallway past him and Yamaguchi and Kei stares down at the sparkling water he’s now holding.

Damn that short little nuisance.

“Tsukki,” Yamaguchi says, a little cautiously, “not to sound rude or anything, but I think I saw that coming.”

“Shut up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Perhaps I should say this now: I'm more of a slow-burn author. Sorry in advance!


	3. Reasons to Stay Inside

There’s a rhythmic _dun…dun…dun_ that’s been going on for about five minutes straight now. Kei thought it was his music at first, but when the track changed and the beat was different, he took his headphones off and cocked his head to catch the sound better.

He doesn’t know what it is, but it’s extremely annoying.

There’s just enough variation in the rhythm to keep him from adjusting to the sound, so when he hits the five-minute mark he can’t take it anymore.

Kei stands up and hangs his headphones around his neck, his phone tucked into his jacket pocket. He heads through the courtyard, following the sound to find—

“Oh, of _course_ ,” he grumbles.

Hinata catches the volleyball he’s been throwing at the wall in front of his cross-legged sitting position and cranes his neck to look at Kei.

“Oh, hey,” he says.

“Don’t _hey_ me,” snaps Kei. “What the hell are you doing?”

“I was a little restless.”

“Why are you sitting there? On the dirt? In your school uniform?”

“I have a free period.”

“Funny, that’s not what I asked.”

Hinata swings his legs around so that he’s sitting facing Kei, still with his neck almost snapped in half to look up at Kei. It makes Kei’s own neck hurt.

“You asked why I was sitting here, and I told you,” says Hinata.

Kei rubs his forehead. “Free periods should be used for getting homework done. You know, homework? That thing you almost never get done because you’re a little volleyball freak?”

“How do you know that?” Hinata asks, recoiling.

“You say so in the club room at least twice a week.”

“I do?”

“Do you…do you not realize how much your voice carries?”

Hinata’s mouth pops open. “Really?”

Kei sits down on the bench a few paces away because he cannot stand to look at Hinata’s potentially broken neck for one seconds longer. He narrows his eyes at Hinata.

“You’re not that smart, huh.”

Hinata looks like he’s just been zapped with electricity, and his large eyes narrow into angry slits.

Before he can say anything, Kei continues, “Your uniform is getting dirty. You know that, right? And you throwing that volleyball against the wall is annoying. It’s annoying. Throw it one more time and I will kill you and bury your body with it.”

“That’s rude, Tsukishima.”

“So is interrupting my free period.”

“How come _you’re_ not doing homework during your free period, huh?” Hinata crows.

Kei glowers at him. “Because I’ve already done it all.”

“Wait, really? How?”

“Because I’m smart.”

“I know that,” Hinata says dismissively. “When did you have time?”

“After school.”

“But we have club after school.”

“Yes. Yes we do.”

“So?”

Kei sighs. “After club, I go home, have dinner, do homework, and go to bed. Then I wake up at a reasonable hour, unlike a certain shortie I know, and do it all over again. That’s what students are actually supposed to do, you know.”

“Ugh.”

“Anyway,” he says, “why are you in this _specific_ spot, sitting in this _specific_ dirt, throwing that volleyball against that _specific_ wall at this _specific_ time today?”

Hinata shrugs. “It’s really stuffy in the classroom, and I’m in the shade here. I was bored, so I grabbed a volleyball from the club room.”

“If you’re bored, do your homework.”

“Why do you care?”

“Because if you’re doing badly before a test, you come running to _me_ for help.”

Hinata crosses his arms over the volleyball in his lap. “Joke’s on you, I’ll go running to Yachi.”

“Or,” says Kei, “you could try harder.”

“I don’t like sitting still. Besides, it’s fine to spend a little time to yourself, right? Not that you’d know, Mr. Perfect Student.”

“I do spend time for myself.”

“Ha, sure you do.”

“I do.”

“What do you do during this ‘free time’ of yours?”

Kei jabs his finger at the headphones around his neck. “I listen to music, you nitwit. Which is what I was doing, before you ruined my free period by throwing your volleyball against the wall.”

Finally, Hinata looks a little cowed. “Oh.” Then he perks up. “What are you listening to?”

“Why?”

“Because I’m asking!”

“Why do you care?”

“Hah? What does it matter?”

With his demonic speed, Hinata jumps up and is standing in front of Kei in a heartbeat’s time. With him standing and Kei sitting, for the first time Kei has to look up to meet Hinata’s eyes. Only a little, though.

Hinata reaches out and plucks Kei’s headphones from around his neck and tucks them onto his ears. The headband smashes Hinata’s wild hair down.

“There’s nothing coming out,” Hinata complains.

“First of all, don’t take things that aren’t yours without permission,” says Kei. He can’t get truly irritated with Hinata, though—not when he looks that silly. “Second, it’s paused.”

“So turn it on!”

“Again, why?”

“Tsukishima, come on!”

Kei glowers but pulls out his phone to turn his music back on. He looks up to watch Hinata’s reaction.

Hinata pushes the headphones closer to his ears. He looks like a child with his hands over his ears like that, and after about ten seconds he starts nodding his head to the beat. He seems to be concentrating very hard on what he’s listening to.

After almost a minute of Kei watching Hinata and Hinata hearing Kei’s music, Hinata pulls off the headphones and lets them dangle around his neck. The cord stretching from the left ear to Kei’s phone sags a little and Kei adjusts his grip on the phone before looking down to hit pause again. He swallows and raises his head.

“Is that English?”

“Yeah.”

“You like Western music?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you understand what they’re saying?”

Kei shrugs. “Sometimes.”

Hinata glows a little with that creepy excitement of his. “You’re really cool after all, Tsukishima!”

“Whatever,” says Kei. “What you do mean, after all?”

Hinata answers with a hapless little smile and shrug. He takes the headphones off from around his neck and tucks them onto Kei’s ears before walking off with a wordless wave.

“Learn about personal space, idiot,” Kei says a few seconds later.


	4. Africa

“I don’t like the way he’s staring at me.”

Kei hears one of his classmates say this in the hall. He looks over his shoulder out of curiosity, half suspecting what he’ll find already, and sighs.

Hinata’s large eyes are fixed on…Kei can’t remember his name, but he sits on the other side of the classroom and plays tennis. Whether Hinata is blinking or not, Kei can’t tell.

“He’s kind of creepy,” says the boy next to Kei’s classmate. “Do you think he’s…you know, not all there? Should he even be here? He looks like a middle schooler.”

“Maybe I should teach him a lesson,” says Kei’s classmate.

Good grief.

Before anything unpleasant can happen, Kei steps in front of his classmate and heads straight toward Hinata’s unmoving stance. He’s almost in front of Hinata before the short boy blinks (finally!) and looks up at him in surprise.

“Tsukishima,” he says. “What are you doing here?”

Too irritated to answer, Kei keeps walking and, as he passes Hinata, grabs the back of his shirt collar and hauls his teammate along.

“Oy! Tsukishima! Oy, let go!”

_Idiot._

He doesn’t let Hinata go until they are in the courtyard.

“Don’t stare at people like that,” he tells Hinata. “It’s rude.”

“What?”

“You were staring at that guy,” says Kei. He won’t admit to not knowing his own classmate’s name. “It was making him uncomfortable.”

Hinata tilts his head a little to the side, like an animal might. “Mayuzumi? The tennis player?”

Dammit.

“Exactly.”

“But…his footwork is really excellent,” Hinata protests. “I saw him play last week. If I watch how he moves I think I’ll learn a lot.”

“I think if you watch him move any more he’ll beat you up.”

“Why?”

Kei rubs his forehead. “Because it’s _weird_ to stare at someone like that.”

Anyway, what did tennis have to do with volleyball?

“Huh.”

Just as Kei lets himself think that this is the end of it, Hinata adds:

“So I should be sneakier when I watch him, then.”

With a heavy sigh, Kei brings his fist firmly down onto Hinata’s head. That wild hair tickles his knuckles, surprisingly soft considering its spiky nature.

“Ouch!”

“Just don’t watch him, you nutcase!”

Hinata pouts as reaches up to rub the top of his head, at which point Kei hastily removes his hand. Those large eyes are now filled with such wounded anguish that, against his own nature, Kei begins to feel bad for hitting the idiot—even if he deserved it.

To be fair, rescuing someone from a potential brawl (someone not named Yamaguchi) is also outside of his nature. Which begs the question: why the hell did he put himself in this situation?

That, at least, is remedied easily enough.

Without a word, Kei turns on his heel and stomps away from Hinata, washing his hands of this nonsense.

Hinata does not get the message.

“Wait, Tsukishima!”

“I’m going to eat my lunch now.”

“I’ll come with you!”

He halts mid-step. “Why?”

Hinata draws even with him and darts a little in front, not even winded by his sprint to catch up. “Well, why not?” he says.

“Because I don’t want to.”

“Why not?”

Kei glowers. “Why do you even want to eat lunch with me?”

Hinata shrugs. “Food is food, no matter who you eat it with.”

Now _that_ bugs him.

“I don’t want to eat lunch with you,” Kei snaps. “You eat like a pack of animals on a nature program with some narrator talking about survival of the fittest and chasing down prey to eat it raw. It’s disgusting. I’ll lose my appetite.”

“That’s very rude.”

“You’re very annoying.”

“If you won’t let me eat lunch with you, I’m going to watch Mayuzumi play during his lunchtime practice.”

What’s unbelievable is that Hinata doesn’t say it like a threat. He says it casually, as if he’s completely forgotten the reason Kei dragged him out into the courtyard in the first place, and actually begins to walk past Kei to do just that.

Kei grabs the back of his shirt collar again. “Nope.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re going to get beat up if you keep watching him, idiot.”

He drags Hinata out of the courtyard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh life is so hard I'm working 60+ hours a week, I'm so sorry this took over a month to get out. And it's on the short side. Sorry sorry.


	5. Gimme Sympathy

Kei is about three-fourths done before he even steps foot into the stadium.

Oh, he’ll stick around for Yamaguchi, because he doesn’t want to ruin his friend’s entire weekend, but between Kageyama’s weird competitive grunting and Hinata’s “waaaah!”s of excitement, Kei regrets not just turning down the idiot shorty in the beginning.

But, “My dad got us tickets to see a real live volleyball game, Tsukishima!” and, “This is the sort of once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, Tsukki!” had swayed him.

Damnit.

“Now, now,” says Hinata’s father, as amused with his son’s wide-eyed fervor as most people would be with a cat video. “Calm down, Shoyo. The game hasn’t even started yet.”

Kageyama abruptly turns from his steady march to the concession stand and bows to Hinata’s father. “Thank you very much for allowing us to join you!” he barks out. His outburst causes a bubble of space to form around him as passersby move away from the strange teenager.

Kei covers his face in one hand. How embarrassing.

Hinata’s father is just benignly amused. Kei wonders if he only has one setting. If so, that might explain why Hinata is so expressive.

“Here,” says Hinata’s father, as he hands his son some money. “Go get everyone some drinks. I’m going to find our seats. Boys?”

Kei is about to follow the older, shorter man when he feels a tug on his shirt hem. He looks down and sees Hinata’s wide eyes looking up at him expectantly.

“What?”

“You’re going to help me, right?” asks Hinata.

“Uh. No.”

Hinata pouts. “I can’t carry drinks for five people all by myself.”

“So? Ask Kageyama to help you.”

“What? No way! He’ll only get us lost.”

…That was true. Kageyama’s sense of geography extends only so far as the lines of a volleyball court.

“Besides,” Hinata adds earnestly, “you’re so tall, there’s no way I’ll lose you in a crowd.”

There’s a particular light in his eyes that has Kei sighing, “Fine,” before he can really consider whether or not he cares if Hinata loses him in a crowd.

And so, the echoing effect of a large hall with multitudes of people beating against his skull, Kei gets in line with an excitedly vibrating midget to get a sugary drink that is likely to send that same midget through the roof, and he’s ready to go home.

“You know, Tsukishima, I didn’t think you would come.”

Kei blinks. “Hah?”

“Well,” says Hinata, “I didn’t think you’d want to.”

“Your dad’s paying for everything, right? It’d be rude not to.”

“Oh. Okay.”

He purses his lips, not wanting to continue their conversation, but:

“Does your dad do this sort of thing a lot? Take you and friends to games?”

Hinata looks up at him. “Hm? No. He got free tickets at work because his supervisor’s family couldn’t make the game, and my dad’s mentioned I’m on the volleyball team. I think this only happened once before when I was eight, maybe? But that wasn’t volleyball. It was baseball. We can’t really afford things like this, most of the time.”

“A simple ‘no’ would have done.”

“You asked!”

“Not for that much detail.”

“Tsukishimaaaa!”

“Stop saying my name like that. You sound like an even bigger idiot than you already are.”

Hinata’s eyes narrow and he turns his head, staring fixedly at the concession menu in front of them. Seeing as he’s a head shorter than almost everyone, Kei doubts any reading is getting done.

For about five seconds Kei relishes the blissful quiet that is Hinata’s silent pouting.

And then the din of the crowd sets in again, and he rubs at his temples in irritation.

He’s never liked loud places. If Kei was by himself, or Hinata’s father wasn’t there, he would have brought headphones to cut the clamor with something pleasant. But that would be rude with an adult, so he left them at home.

Apparently his only relief would be his number one annoyance.

“Oy,” he says. “Shorty. Do you know what drinks we’re getting for everyone?”

“A sports drink for Kageyama,” Hinata says absently. “Same for me. My dad will want a Coke. I don’t know what Yamaguchi wants—”

“Fruit juice,” Kei says.

“—and you want sparkling water. Lemon flavored.”

Kei blinks. “Huh?”

Hinata peers up at him, no lingering pout apparent. “Well, don’t you?”

“Well yeah, but how would you know that?”

“That’s what you made me buy you.”

Kei just shakes his head, perplexed.

Hinata frowns a little. “With the vending machine? Remember?”

It takes a second, but Kei recalls the incident. He hadn’t even drunk the sparkling water after Hinata had shook it up, so he forgot what it was. Odd how he barely paid attention to it but Hinata seems to have it memorized. Probably because of all that empty space in his head.

Instead of commenting on that, Kei says, “Anything to eat?”

“No. My mom packed food.”

“Oh.”

“But you can get something if you want. Only, maybe with your own money? Sorry.”

“I’m not going to turn down free food, idiot,” says Kei.

Hinata looks a little proud, which is irritating.

“We’re up next,” he says, to make Hinata stop looking at him like that.

Kei half expects Hinata to get flustered and forget things while he’s making the orders, but he nails it perfectly. Even Yamaguchi’s fruit juice.

Isn’t Hinata supposed to suck at memorization?

As they wait for their drinks, Kei realizes something he cannot believe he didn’t see earlier, and he can’t hold back a flush of embarrassment.

Hinata’s fingers are still gripping his shirt hem.

“The hell?” he grumbles, and pushes Hinata’s hand away.

“Eh? What’s the matter?”

Kei glowers at him. “Don’t hold onto me like that. You’ll stretch my shirt.”

“What?” Hinata peers at Kei’s shirt hem. “Doesn’t look stretched to me.”

“Because I—”

“Besides, I don’t want to get separated from you.”

“You what?”

“If one of us gets lost, it’ll be a real hassle.”

Kei hears their number called and grabs the tray of four drinks, handing the fifth to Hinata at his elbow. He scans the thickening crowd and sighs heavily.

“Fine, you can hold my shirt. Just stay close and follow me.”


	6. Warm Blood

 

Akiteru opens the door to Takinoue Electronics and gestures for Kei to go in first.

After a mumbled, “Thanks,” Kei goes in and tugs off his knit cap. His glasses start to fog up from the difference in temperature (freezing outside, cozy inside) and he pulls them off with a huff.

“Can’t see?” Akiteru asks as he closes the door.

“Give it a minute.”

Kei wipes his glasses using the bottom of his shirt. He holds them up and checks for smudges before tucking them back on his face with an annoyed click of his tongue.

“You should talk to Mom about getting contacts,” Akiteru says, not for the first time.

“I don’t like contacts,” he says.

“You tried them once six years ago. Give it another go! I don’t even notice mine when I’m wearing them. It’ll make volleyball easier.”

Kei twists his lips in distaste, and Akiteru sighs good naturedly.

“Up to you,” he says, and steps past Kei into the store proper.

Kei follows silently. He looks at the shelves of the aisle they’re in, examining the phone chargers and extension cords marked for sale. He doesn’t need them but it’s good to know in case of emergencies.

If he’d been looking straight forward, maybe he wouldn’t have walked into his brother’s back.

“Ouch,” Kei says as his nose hits Akiteru’s head. “What are you doing?”

Akiteru glances over his shoulder to meet Kei’s eyes. “Isn’t that your teammate?” he says, and points in front of them. “The shorty?”

Kei steps to the right to get a better look—and clicks his tongue.

“Can’t I get a day off from this guy?” he mutters, but any irritation he’s feeling triples when he sees a much taller form join Hinata by what looks to be another rack of phone chargers.

Animal instinct is probably what makes both Hinata and Kageyama look up and over at where Kei and Akiteru are standing. Kageyama’s eyes narrow, but Hinata breaks into a sunny grin.

“Tsukki!” he exclaims, and starts toward them.

“Who said you could call me that?” Kei shoots back. He’s aware of Akiteru’s growing smile, and hates it.

“What are you doing here?” Hinata asks.

Kei points at his brother. “Nii-san needs a new phone.”

Hinata’s mouth forms an “O” of comical size. His eyes are about as round.

“This is your brother?” he squeaks. “Oh—ah!” he bows to Akiteru, who hides a chuckle in his hand.

God, how embarrassing!

“Nice to meet you in person, Hinata-kun,” Akiteru says. “I’ve seen some of your matches.”

“Thank you for your support!”

“He was there to support _me_ , you idiot,” says Kei.

Kageyama stomps up to loom behind Hinata, right on schedule. His frown and crossed arms are clearly meant to be intimidating, as always, but he stands at least five centimeters short of Akiteru, whom Kei has long since surpassed in height. The result is unintentional comedy.

“What are you doing here?” Kageyama growls.

Before Kei can deliver an appropriately scathing response, Hinata elbows their idiot setter in the ribs.

“Don’t be so mean!” he says. “Obviously they’re here to buy something, Kageyama. Jeez.”

“Anyway, are you here for some reason, or do you just follow me around, Kageyama?” asks Kei. He pastes a nasty grin on his face as Kageyama’s frown deepens.

An open hand smacks him on the back of his head, dislodging his glasses.

“Ouch!”

“No picking fights,” Akiteru says. If he didn’t sound so amused, it would be a proper scolding.

“Fine,” he mutters.

Hinata looks disgustingly delighted.

Kei reaches out and drops his fist onto Hinata’s head before he can stop to think about what he’s doing. He doesn’t use a lot of force, and he keeps his hand there as he says:

“What are you grinning about, stupid?”

“Your brother is cool!”

Akiteru laughs out loud. “You hear that, Kei? I’m your cool older brother.”

“Shut up, nii-san.”

Hinata snickers.

“What?” Kei asks.

“You only tell Yamaguchi and your brother to shut up like that,” says Hinata. “It’s funny—that’s how you talk to the people you care about? That’s just like you.”

Kei is opening his mouth to tell Hinata to shut up when that particular gem pops out. He chokes the words back, but just barely. The face he must be making…

“He’s a little twisted, isn’t he?” says Akiteru. “Sorry about that.”

“Oy,” Kageyama breaks in. He’s glaring at Kei. “Get your hand off him.”

“Huh?”

Kei glances at Hinata and realizes he’s still resting his fist on Hinata’s head. He pulls his arm away fast as lightning and tucks both of his hands in his coat pockets.

It’s only after he does this that Kei realize he’s just made the situation ten times more awkward.

“I don’t mind,” Hinata tells Kageyama. A confused frown crinkles between his eyebrows. “He didn’t hit me hard or anything. It’s not like you’re the only one who can hit me, Kageyama.”

“I’m not trying to injure you though!”

“Dramatic as ever, Your Highness.” Kei glances at the now bemused Akiteru. “Can we go get your phone now? Please?”

“…Uh, sure,” his brother says. He waves at the idiot duo. “Nice to meet you in person.”

“Nice to meet you, Tsukishima-san!” says Hinata before he turns to continue squabbling with Kageyama.

After they’ve moved a couple of aisles over, Akiteru turns to Kei with a small smile.

“It’s good to see you getting along with someone other than Tadashi, for a change.”

_What part of that was getting along?_ Kei thinks, but he’d rather not get into it with his brother about this, so he just nods awkwardly.

His hands stay in his pockets for the next few minutes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So anyway I am a Super Awkward Possum when it comes to comments...I'm never sure if y'all want me to respond or not so I freeze up and then just don't to avoid weird situations. If you want me to respond, maybe just give me a *wink* or something? Idk. I swear I'm not trying to be aloof, I am just a Mess. It's not you, it's me.


	7. Lovefool

“Tsukishima-san?”

Kei looks up and away from the window he’s been staring out of, chin in hand.

It’s a girl in his class… he can’t remember her name, but he’s seventy percent sure she’s the class rep. She’s standing in front of his desk looking nervous as all hell.

Dammit, is he that scary?

“Hm?” he replies in as neutral a tone as possible.

“Um, you just got called to the counselor’s office,” says the girl.

Kei frowns. “What for?”

“I…I’m not sure.”

He sighs. “Okay.” Kei stands up and stretches his neck to either side. He spares another look at the rainy scene outside his classroom window before nodding down at the girl.

She nods back with her lips pressed together. Probably she’s ten seconds away from squeaking in distress.

Well, Kei muses as he steps into the hallway and closes the classroom door, it isn’t as though he’s never had someone be intimidated of him because of his height. In fact, he’s mostly used that reaction to his advantage…but honestly, what did she think he was going to do? Step on her?

Kei stays somewhat lost in thought as he walks down the hallway, so he doesn’t hear the voices until he rounds the corner and realizes he’s stepped into something unpleasant.

Quick as a flash, he retreats back around the corner.

“And so,” the short girl says, sounding incredibly nervous, “if you want to go somewhere, sometime…”

“What do you mean?” Hinata replies in a cheerful tone.

That _idiot_.

Kei doesn’t care—he honestly doesn’t—but he’ll be damned if he has to walk through this mess and get involved, which is what will happen, because lately Hinata has been calling out to him every time their paths cross. So he rests his back on the wall and listens for this nightmare to be over with.

“Um…well…s-s-seeing a movie after school, or—”

“I have volleyball practice after school, though.”

“O-or maybe on the weekend?”

“Well…that would depend on the day, I guess,” says Hinata. “But I don’t understand why you’re asking me. You avoid me a lot in class, right?”

 _Oh,_ _spare me_ , Kei groans inwardly.

In the first place, what is this girl thinking? What sort of terrible taste does she have? And beyond that, why won’t she come out and say it? Hinting around the subject doesn't work with this particular brand of stupid.

“U-um…I think Hinata-kun is…very cool—”

“Just Hinata is fine!”

“U-u-um!”

This is just…painful. Absolutely painful.

Kei starts banging the back of his head against the wall—lightly, so as not be overheard, but _honestly_.

“So?” Hinata prompts, after a long stretch of silence.

“U-um! The truth is…the truth is…I like you a lot, so…!”

It’s dead quiet after that.

Kei can’t restrain his curiosity (mostly wondering if Hinata even understood what was just confessed), so he peeks around the corner to see Hinata has taken a couple steps back, his eyes wide and mouth hanging open as the girl peers at him through her fingers.

And then, bizarrely, Hinata goes into a formal bow.

“I’m sorry,” he says to the floor. “I’m really sorry. I’m really, really sorry.”

“Oh, u-um, it’s fine!”

“I’m really sorry,” Hinata says again. He’s unusually solemn. “I already have someone I like, so I’m really sorry. Thank you. I’m sorry.”

“No, no, it’s okay! If you already like someone else…it’s okay!”

Kei watches the girl run off down the hallway and into the closest girls’ bathroom. Hinata remains bent at the waist and unmoving.

He can’t take it anymore. He’s _got_ to mess with Hinata about this one.

Kei steps out from around the corner. “Graceless as ever.”

Hinata starts. He snaps upright and looks up at Kei with bright red cheeks. “Since when?”

“Since right around the time you were too stupid to pick up on her hints.” Kei allows a derisive sneer to curl his lips. “Then again, _I_ couldn’t have imagined anyone having a crush on you, so—”

“Wha—sh-sh-shut up, Tsukishima!” Hinata is glowing now.

“I mean, I guess you’re approachable and all”—unlike him—“but that girl must not have very good standards. I feel sorry for her, really. And after all that you turned her down!”

Hinata charges for him with that inhuman speed, but Kei's been expecting it from the start.

He puts his hand out and pushes on Hinata’s forehead, holding him back. Hinata swings out at him, still bright red, but his arms are too short to connect.

“You are so _mean_ ,” whines Hinata.

“I’m not the one who just rejected a girl by making up someone I like.”

“I didn’t make up anything!”

Surprised, Kei lets up a little of the pressure he’s using on Hinata’s forehead. For a second his fingers run through Hinata’s hair and then—

“Oof!” Kei grunts as Hinata lands a punch to his stomach.

“I didn’t make anything up,” Hinata repeats.

“Oho?” Kei puts a hand to his side. “Is this person you like named Mikasa? Or Molton?”

“So mean!”

“Am I wrong?”

“Yes!”

Kei tilts his head to the side and considers Hinata, who stands in front of him, slightly out of breath, red to the tips of his ears. He feels something fall out of place in his assessment of Hinata.

Impossible. Hinata only thinks about volleyball. Besides, when would he have time to like someone?

Kei finds he’s a little grumpy.

He’s never been this wrong about someone before. What’s next, Kageyama gets a girlfriend?

“Huh,” Kei says aloud, which about sums everything up.

“What are you even doing here, Tsukishima?” Hinata demands with his cheeks still glowing.

“Just passing through. Believe me, I don’t want me to be here as much as you.”

Hinata lets out a groan and ruffles his hair. He looks out the window and Kei follows his gaze.

Still raining.

“Oy,” Kei says. “Who _do_ you like, anyway?”

“Not telling.”

“What? Why not? What do you think I’m going to do, huh?”

“With that face, what _wouldn’t_ you do?”

“Now who’s the rude one? This is how my face is naturally.”

“Exactly.”

“Why won’t you tell me?”

Hinata flushes a deeper red. “Because you’ll never stop making fun of me.”

“That’s not true,” Kei argues. “I’ll get bored in a year or two.”

“I’m going back to class.”

“Fine by me,” says Kei. “I’ll just ask you at practice.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...anyway...I'm a giant hack


	8. From Eden

“Stop smiling.”

Hinata tilts his head to the side. “Why?”

Kei glares. “Because you’re creeping me out.”

“What? How?” Hinata sits up straight from his stretches on the gym floor. He’s irritatingly flexible, able to go into deep stretches that make Kei’s hamstrings cramp up just by watching.

“You keep smiling at me. It’s creepy. Stop it.”

“What makes you think I’m smiling at you?”

Kei gestures around. “Who else is there?”

It’s true; Kageyama and Yamaguchi are closer to the stage, and the second and third years are scattered throughout the gym. There’s no one else in the direction Hinata’s looking in besides Kei.

“How do you know I’m not just smiling?”

“If you’re smiling for no reason, that’s even creepier.”

The grin finally falls from Hinata’s mouth. “Jeez, Tsukki, you’re so sensitive.”

Kei does not like that at all. “Excuse me?” he says with narrowed eyes.

Hinata goes into another terrifyingly limber stretch. “What’s the big deal, anyway? I know you’re allergic to smiling yourself, but they’re not contagious. And I don’t think I’m creepy.”

“We’re not talking about your opinion here.”

Hinata gives a heavy sigh.

Kei glances back over at Kageyama and Yamaguchi. It’s been bugging him since they entered the gym, but…

“Why aren’t you over there with His Highness, anyway?”

“Huh?”

“Why are you over here with me?”

Hinata sits back up and looks Kei straight in the eye. “Because you’d be alone,” he says simply. “If Kageyama is over there”—he jerks his head in the direction of the stage—“you won’t go.”

Kei feels unsettled by this. “So what?” he mutters. “You keeping me company?”

“Well… yeah, I guess.”

“I didn’t ask you to.”

“So?”

“So go away, you munchkin.”

Hinata hops to his feet. “Nope!”

“Go away, or I’ll ask you who it is you like. I’ll tell Tanaka-san, too.”

“Geh!”

Kei thinks he’s won this round and he’ll be left in blissful peace for a few minutes, but instead Hinata comes around to stand behind him.

“What the heck are you doing?”

“You suck at stretches.”

“Well, excuse me,” snaps Kei, more than a little irritated. “We can’t all bend in half like you can.”

Hinata’s hands land on Kei’s back, one hand on each shoulder blade. “I’ll help you,” he says, and starts pushing Kei down into a low bow that he can feel in the small of his back and his hamstrings.

“Again, I didn’t ask you to.”

“Will you—you _stop_ complaining? Sheesh. What’re we going to do if you strain something because you suck at stretching, huh?”

It really irks Kei to be scolded by Hinata, especially since he knows Hinata is right. He presses his lips together and lets Hinata push him into a stretch that hurts way more than he’s used to.

Hinata’s hands are really small. He feels the pressure of them on his shoulder blades, Hinata’s thumbs pressed up against his spine. His palms must be about half the size of Kei’s own. His fingers are small, too. Kind of delicate.

His hands are warm on Kei’s back.

“That’s enough,” Kei mutters, and forces himself to sit upright.

“If you don’t do the other side—”

“Okay!”

Kei lets himself get pushed down again, stretching out his other leg this time. It’s just as painful as the first one and he focuses on the sharp pull of his hamstring instead of the pressure on his back.

“Oi, Tsukishima,” Hinata says, distressingly close to his ear. “Breathe through it, okay?”

“Shut _up_.”

“Wha—I’m helping!”

“You’re annoying.”

“You know, this is what I meant when I said you’re sensitive.”

Kei glares at the gym floor. “I do _not_ want to hear that from you, of all people.”

“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Someone who overreacts to every single situation doesn’t get to call other people sensitive.”

Hinata releases his press against Kei’s back at last.

Kei sits upright and tilts his head up to look at Hinata. Hinata’s face is above the rim of Kei’s glasses so he can only see a blurred face and can’t make out Hinata’s expression at all…but he thinks Hinata is blushing.

Good.

“I don’t overreact,” Hinata mumbles.

“Yes you do.”

“…do not.”

“Why are you arguing about this? Of course you do. That’s your entire personality.”

“I can be cool if I want to!”

Kei chuckles. “All I said was that you overreact, stupid.”

Hinata leans in a little closer. Kei can now make out the details of Hinata’s face, including a slightly anxious look that’s about as puzzling as it is amusing.

“Hey, Tsukki, does that mean you think I’m cool?”

“I didn’t say that, either.”

“You’re not nice at _all_.”

“Oh?” Kei raises his eyebrows. “Did you want me to be nice? You’ve come to the wrong place for that.”

“Well, at least not so mean,” says Hinata. “Friends are usually a little nicer to each other.”

Kei pauses. “Friends?”

“Aren’t we?”

“Are we? I didn’t think so.”

Hinata frowns deeply. “But we are, right?”

There’s a particular upset in Hinata’s expression that makes Kei uncomfortable. Normally he’d take advantage of that, wouldn’t he? But maybe this is different than when he riles Hinata up on purpose. Kei doesn’t want to actually hurt the idiot.

Against his better judgment, Kei sighs loudly. “Fiiiiine,” he says. “Friends. Only if you never help me stretch again.”

Hinata lights up and Kei looks away.


	9. Stolen Dance

The bus ride is, as usual, silent on the way back from a practice match. Kei doesn't have to turn up his music at all, except to block the standard background noise that accompanies all vehicles on the road.

He stares out the window at the sunset drenching the passing scenery.

Kei isn't sleepy at all, unlike everyone else who played all six sets. He feels unsettled, like he hasn't done his best, like he's still halfway to mediocre. It’s frustrating.

Yamaguchi went to sit with Kinoshita and Narita in the back today so Kei has the entire bench seat to himself.

He thinks about stretching out his legs, turns to do so—

And finds a set of large brown eyes staring right at him.

“What the hell?” Kei says, startled. He tugs his headphones off his ears and lurches back against the window in the same reflexive movement. “How long have you been there?”

“Since Kageyama started drooling on my shoulder,” says Hinata, shrugging, as if he didn't almost give Kei a heart attack.

“ _Knock_ , or something,” Kei wheezes.

“It's a bus, there aren't any doors to knock on.”

He glowers. “You know what I mean.”

“Can I sit here?”

“Weren't you asleep?”

“Yes,” says Hinata, “but then Kageyama was drooling on my shoulder and I woke up.”

“Gross.”

“Exactly. Can I sit here?”

Kei narrows his eyes. “No.”

“What—why not?”

“Find somewhere else.”

“But there isn't somewhere else to sit,” Hinata replies, and pouts. “This is the only open seat. Please, Tsukki?”

“Who said you could call me that?”

“Please, O Great Tsukishima-sama?”

Kei grits his teeth and sighs loudly. “Fine. Just…don't talk to me.”

Hinata beams and retreats for all of ten seconds before returning with his backpack, which he tucks into his lap. Kei looks at the floor and realizes Hinata’s feet are dangling a solid ten centimeters above the floor level. He sniggers.

“What?”

“Shortie.”

“Hah?” Hinata snaps. “What’d you say?”

“Oy, be quiet back there,” Coach Ukai calls from the front passenger seat.

“Ah! …Sorry.”

Kei laughs into his hand as Hinata bows in his sitting position, not even considering that their coach couldn't possibly see his short head doing such a thing.

Hinata’s cheeks are tinged pink when he turns back to Kei. “Jeez,” he complains. “That was your fault, too.”

“It's not my fault you're so short.”

“Shut up, Jerk-shima.”

Kei keeps his hand over his mouth to cover his smile. Hinata is so easy to provoke. He can't stop himself sometimes, though he probably should try once in a while.

Hinata wriggles in his seat. He's still sporting a light flush in his cheeks.

“Stupid, sit still,” Kei says.

“I will! I’m getting comfortable.”

“Liar.”

“I'm serious!”

“Shouldn't you be sleeping? How are you not exhausted, jumping around like you do?”

Hinata scratches behind his ear. “Ah…I don't know. I am tired but…it feels like I didn't do enough, you know?”

Kei hates that he does know.

“Nope,” he lies smoothly.

Hinata bares his teeth at Kei in a half-hearted grimace that is about as intimidating as a puppy. Kei narrowly restrains himself from reaching over and mussing Hinata’s already wild hair like he's playing with a pet. Something tells him he'd get bit if he tried that.

Kei sighs through his nose and pulls his headphones back on.

He didn't pause the music when Hinata had come out of nowhere to give him a jump-scare and Kei finds that his playlist has already gone ahead two songs. He considers skipping back to where he was but as one song fades into another, he shrugs and lets it go. It isn't like he can't listen to it again.

The song that starts playing is a simple one, relying mostly on vocals (that he can parse about half of) and a catchy guitar line. Kei looks back out the window and sees the sky has gotten a little darker.

It takes a minute for Kei to notice his own reflection, and ten seconds after that to notice Hinata’s.

Hinata is looking at him. As soon as Kei deciphers Hinata’s eye-line he can feel that intense stare like a heatwave. The hairs on his neck prickle and stand up.

And what a _complicated_ expression Hinata has, too. Kei didn't think the shortie was capable of complex emotions, but there they were, all jumbled together on his face in a mix that Kei can't figure out.

Their eyes meet in the window’s reflection. Hinata turns bright red.

“Um!” he exclaims in a squeak.

Kei turns his head around, pauses his music, tugs his headphones off to dangle around his neck.

“What.”

“No, um…” Hinata fidgets with the hem of his jersey jacket. “Uh…I just wanted…”

“What?” Kei repeats, some of the tension thrumming in him echoed in his voice.

“I just wanted to know what you were listening to,” says Hinata, quietly.

Kei frowns. “Oh.” _Oh?_ “Why?”

“I liked your music the last time I listened, and, so… I was curious?”

Kei doesn't know what to say to that. He stares at Hinata for a long second that stretches into ten, and Hinata never once meets his eyes. He's a brilliant red from his cheeks to his ears to his neck.

It's kind of…

He bends over and reaches into the outermost pocket of his backpack. After a few seconds of fumbling Kei pulls out a headphone splitter jack and his spare set of earbuds. The latter, he passes to Hinata without a word.

It takes a second for Hinata to grasp that Kei is giving him something instead of just shoving his open palm in from of him.

Kei sets up the jack and plugs in his own headphones first, and then takes the end of Hinata’s set as Hinata puts the second bud in his left ear.

“I keep these for Yamaguchi,” Kei explains, though he doesn't need to explain anything to Hinata, not really.

“Oh.”

Kei clicks back to the beginning of the song and presses play. He leans back in his seat and watches Hinata’s reaction out of the corner of his eye.

Hinata seems to be seriously contemplating the music for a while. He purses his lips—obviously he doesn't understand a word of it—and taps his fingers on his leg.

And then his head starts bobbing ever-so-slightly in his appreciation of the song, and Kei doesn't know why, but he's relieved.

He closes his eyes and tries to imagine what it would be like, listening to this song for the first time again. He tries to recapture the feeling of getting slowly caught up in the melody, the chorus reeling him in time and again. Is that how Hinata…?

There's a soft pressure on his shoulder.

Kei looks over to see Hinata has shifted a little closer to him in his seat, his eyes drifting shut. Their shoulders are pressed up against each other, though Hinata’s is obviously lower than Kei’s. He’s still lightly bobbing his head to the beat, likely on reflex. His lips are slightly parted.

Kei… feels _odd_.

Maybe it's the music, or the setting sun. Maybe it's the near silence of the bus. But for a moment he thinks…he thinks… Hinata looks—

His mind stutters over the thought.

Kei jerks his gaze back to the scenery out the window, never mind that he can barely see anything in the fading light now. His chest is so tight that it feels wrong to breathe normally.

What was his thought, there?

It felt like he was about to think, _Hinata looks cute_ , except thinking that about another guy is a little… or maybe it was _handsome_ , but Hinata isn't exactly that, either. Not really.

But that's the general sentiment, all the same, even if Kei hasn't nailed down the specifics. Hinata is _something_.

Kei’s mouth thins. He closes his eyes and directs his thoughts elsewhere.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah...this one got away from me a little. So i guess we're doing this now instead of later, when i planned, huh. I blame the music tbh!! Written entirely on my phone so super call me out for mistakes, I probably didn't catch them all.


	10. Reality

“You and Hinata seem to be getting along.”

Kei did not mean to say that.

“Uh?” Yamaguchi checks his phone and taps out a text. “Yeah. He’s funny.”

“Hm.”

“Is it a problem if I get along with Hinata?”

Kei really did _not_ mean to say that.

“It’s not a problem.”

“Uh-huh, sure,” says Yamaguchi, about as skeptical as if Kei had just announced he was taking up ballet as his new sport of choice.

Yamaguchi’s phone _dings_ with a new incoming text and Kei has to physically restrain himself from looking over his friend’s shoulder to see what Hinata wrote. Especially when Yamaguchi snorts and adjusts his grip on the phone to text back.

“It’s definitely not a problem.”

“So you said.”

“I’m saying so again because you don’t believe me.”

“Jeez, Tsukki.”

“I just want to be clear—”

Yamaguchi looks up as soon as he sends his text off and cuts Kei off mid-sentence. “You know,” he says, “just because you’re avoiding him these days doesn’t mean I have to ignore him.”

Kei blinks in surprise. “I’m not avoiding him.”

“Oh, please.”

“I’m not!” Kei wonders when Yamaguchi started talking to him like this. “I see him every day at practice.”

“You guys were hanging out a _lot_ for a few weeks,” says Yamaguchi, pointing to his phone screen and then at Kei. “Like, inseparable. And now it’s like he walks into a room and you suddenly have to leave. Don’t think he hasn’t noticed, either.”

“We weren’t hanging out, he was hanging _onto_ me. I got sick of it.”

Yamaguchi shakes his head. “Well, whatever. I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

“Hah? You brought it up!”

“Because you wouldn’t shut up.”

Kei opens his mouth to snap back at Yamaguchi, but he can’t think of anything to say. He resolves himself to silence while Yamaguchi’s phone _dings_ again and his friend continues his flurry of texting with Hinata. It’s not like Kei really cares.

He hasn’t been avoiding Hinata. Kei is just too busy to deal with Hinata’s hyperactive energy. That’s normal, after all. Kei has a lot to do, he doesn’t have time to play. Being around Hinata isn’t even _play_ it’s exhausting. Yeah. Kei is exhausted. It’s not avoidance.

Crap.

Kei rubs at his forehead with the heel of his palm.

He and Yamaguchi round the corner and see their teammates up ahead, swarming outside Sakanoshita shop like a flock of large carrion birds. That orange head of hair immediately catches Kei’s attention.

“I thought he was heading straight home.”

“Wait, you thought Hinata was texting me while biking up a mountain?”

“No, I just didn’t think—”

“You didn’t think he’d be here?”

Kei grimaces. “I’m _not_ avoiding him.”

Yamaguchi tucks his phone into his pocket. “I don’t know what the heck is going on with you two, but talk to him. He’s worried you hate him.”

“What?”

Kei doesn’t like hearing that. He looks back at his teammates and his heart skips a beat in surprise when he finds Hinata’s eyes fixed on him.

“I don’t hate him,” Kei mumbles.

“I know that, but you guys only just became friends. Give him a break.”

He glances sideways at Yamaguchi, whose mouth is set in a stubborn line.

“Hinata is a bad influence on you,” Kei announces.

Yamaguchi snickers. “Yeah, yeah. I’m going to get some tea, okay, Tsukki?”

Kei waves him off. He steels himself and walks right into the mess of teenage boys.

“Tsukishima!” Tanaka says, too loudly, and shoves a pork bun in his hand. “Good timing! Daichi-san said to save this one for you but I was super hungry. Aren’t you glad I’m such a good senpai?”

“Uh.”

“Not eating his food is normal, Tanaka.”

“Yeah, don’t act like you’re such a big deal.”

“You guys suck!”

Kei edges around the squabbling second years and comes to stand next to Hinata, who is currently shoving the last of his own pork bun into his mouth. His cheeks bulge like a chipmunk.

“Hey.” He bites his lip and looks straight ahead.

“Gid a goo fumfin foo ake oo aye me?”

“Uh…” Kei glances down at Hinata, frowning. “What?”

Hinata swallows. “Um. Nothing.”

“No, that was something. I sure don’t know _what_ you said, but you said something, all right.”

“Nothing, just…did I…nothing.”

Kei takes a bite of his pork bun and chews slowly, thinking.

“Did you say ‘did I do something to make you hate me’ just now?”

Hinata stares.

“Was I right?”

“You’re so cool!” says Hinata—or maybe he squeals it. “How the heck did you guess that?”

_Because Yamaguchi literally just said you think I hate you_.

“Extrapolated it from probabilities.”

“That’s amazing! You’re really cool, Tsukki!”

Hinata’s eyes are wide and sparkling. _Sparkling_.

Crap.

Kei has spent the last two weeks trying to find a word that isn’t “cute” to describe Hinata and so far has come up empty. The kid is cute. No two ways about it. That’s sort of the problem, because Kei has a weak spot for cute things, _like most normal people all over the world_ —honestly, who doesn’t like puppies and kittens and small woodland creatures?

He absolutely does not want to have a weak spot for Hinata. That is the exact opposite of acceptable.

“You’re such a dork,” he says to Hinata, and ruffles Hinata’s hair with his free hand.

Hinata beams up at him. “So you don’t hate me.”

“Of course I don’t.”

“Don’t say ‘of course,’ you did for a while.”

“…Whatever. I didn’t. You’re just annoying. Anyway you definitely hated me for a while.”

“But I don’t now!” Hinata says. He raises himself to stand on the ball of his feet and pushes his head into Kei’s hand. “Because we’re friends!”

Kei swallows. “Not even a little, huh?”

“Nope!”

“Huh. Cool.”

There is no reason that should make Kei happy. None at all. He didn’t think Hinata hated him in the first place. Kei takes another bite of his pork bun.

“Hey, Tsukki?”

“Hm?”

“Can you make me a copy of what we were listening to on the bus that time?”

Kei shrugs. “Sure. It’s just a playlist I put together, though. It’s nothing special.”

“It’s what you like to listen to, though, right?”

“…Yeah.”

“So I wanna hear it,” Hinata says. He looks incredibly determined.

“Okay,” says Kei slowly.

Crap.


	11. Circles

“Hey, hey, _hey!_ ”

Kei is going to kill someone. Or possibly himself. Probably himself.

“Loud as ever,” he mutters, and next to him, Yamaguchi snickers.

“Yep. At least he likes you, though, Tsukki.”

“There’s nothing good about that,” says Kei.

Currently, Bokuto is swarming Daichi, which means Kei has about three minutes to slip away and avoid the world’s most annoying volleyball player.

See, he doesn’t mind Bokuto, per se, but he is a _lot_ to deal with and Kei has used up most of his patience on the bus ride over, seated behind Hinata and Kageyama as they argue with an appalling amount of onomatopoeia in each sentence, and his phone ran out of battery halfway through the drive so Kei had nothing to listen to instead of those two idiots, and it’s just…

_A lot_.

“Cheer up, Tsukki,” Yamaguchi says. “We’ll play a couple of sets and then we’ll be done for the day.”

“Not soon enough,” says Kei. “I’m going to go, now, before he catches me.

“Okay,” says Yamaguchi.

Kei takes a step to do just that, but—

“Oy, Hinata! How’s it going, huh? How’s that feint going, huh? Are you practicing everything you’ve learned from me, my disciple?”

“Bokuto-san!”

_Don’t look don’t look don’t look—_

Out of the corner of his eye Kei sees Bokuto nearing Hinata. Bokuto’s hand reaches out and ruffles Hinata’s hair. Excessively.

Kei doesn’t quite know how he got from Point A to Point B but there he is, stepping up next to Hinata and pushing Bokuto’s hand out of the way to rest his own on top of Hinata’s head.

“Oh, Tsukki! There you are!” hoots Bokuto. He doesn’t seem to care, or even notice, that Kei has done something kind of rude.

“Hi,” Kei says wearily.

“Both of my Karasuno first year students in one place,” says Bokuto. Is he vibrating? He might be vibrating. “I bet you’re both excited to get back to our free practice games, hey? Hey, hey, hey!”

“Yep!” says Hinata.

Kei sighs. “Sure, whatever.”

“Still so bored,” says Bokuto. “Fine. I’ll go tell Kuroo!”

“You go do that.”

As Bokuto leaves, Hinata looks up at Kei.

Kei narrows his eyes. “What?”

“What are you doing to my head?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re not moving your hand.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Why?”

“Why not?”

“Because I need my head to—”

“What the heck do you use your head for, anyway?” Kei interrupts him, smirking.

Hinata glowers up at him, a little dusting of pink on his cheeks. “So mean. And all the time!”

Kei chuckles before he knows he’s doing it. “Don’t you have anything else to say about me other than I’m mean? Your vocabulary is almost as bad as Kageyama’s.”

“It’s not _that_ bad.”

“Mm, that’s why I said _almost_.”

Coach Ukai calls for the team to head to the dorm they’re staying at to drop off their bags. He tells them their first set will be in half an hour and to get ready.

Hinata points as their teammates start trudging off, led by Daichi. “We’ve got to go.”

“So let’s go,” Kei says.

“Can you move your hand first?”

“So _needy_. And short.”

Hinata huffs, but says nothing as Kei removes his hand. They both head to the dwindling pile of duffel bags and pick theirs out. Kei hefts his over his left shoulder while Hinata wears his like a backpack.

It’s cute.

Kei really hates that it’s cute. It should look stupid.

“Hey,” says Hinata, about ten paces away from the bus. “Why did you come over?”

“Hm?”

“You were going to run away before Bokuto-san saw you, weren’t you?”

Kei frowns down at Hinata. “How did you know that?”

Hinata bites his lip and looks down at his feet. “Well, don’t you always? And it looked like you were about to…”

Does that mean Hinata was watching him?

Something expands in Kei’s chest. He feels a little warm. He doesn’t…

“I decided to get it over with,” he lies. “And since he was going to harass you anyway I figured he might annoy both of us at once.”

“Oh.”

“Yep.”

“Bokuto-san doesn’t annoy me, though.”

“Really? Lucky you.”

What’s he going to say? That Kei had this weird streak of possessiveness over Hinata’s head? That’s really weird. Kei would rather shoot himself in the head than say something like that.

Maybe not the head. The leg? No, that’s too risky, he might hit an artery. Just shooting himself in the foot would be too ironic, though, somehow…

Ugh.

Hinata has nice, soft, fluffy hair. Kei likes touching it. He also likes touching other nice, soft, fluffy things. Maybe Kei should get a fuzzy pillow or something so he’ll stop being such a freak. It’s not normal to feel possessive over the texture of someone else’s hair.

“Anyone you’re looking forward to playing against?” Hinata asks.

“You,” says Kei without thinking.

Hinata pulls up short and stares at him, mouth hanging slightly open.

Kei puts his hands up. “Um, during free practice, I mean,” he stammers out. “Um. I didn’t mean that in a mean way. Really.”

“I know you didn’t,” Hinata says. He’s still staring.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he says.

“Like what?”

“Like I just punched you or something!”

Red colors Hinata’s face. “I’m not looking at you like that,” he says defensively. “I’m…happy. That you want to play me. I’m happy about it.”

“…Oh.”

Hinata nods.

“Okay, then,” says Kei.

“Okay.”

“Can we keep going? We’ve only got half an hour.”

Hinata’s mouth pops open, and then he glares. “Hey, it’s your fault we stopped!”

“You stopped first.”

“Because of you!”

“Doesn’t mean you didn’t stop first, though, does it!”

Kei lets himself fall into the easy back-and-forth of arguing with an idiot like Hinata. He doesn’t have to get creative with his insults here—if he did, they would probably go right over the shorty’s head, much like everything else.

Anyway, why does it feel like he’s trembling all over? Gross.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things I should be doing: sleeping, getting ready for my move this weekend, adult responsibilities. Things I am doing: this. I am a Mess. But at least this was cute, right?


	12. Habits of My Heart

“Oh my god,” says Sugawara.

The entire table—Kei included—lets out murmured, heartfelt agreements.

“Okay, who gave him the sugar?” Daichi asks, trying to sound stern. It almost works.

“Don’t look at me,” says Tanaka, raising his hands. “I’ve spent the day with Tsukishima. Isn’t that right, Tsukishima?”

Kei shrugs. “Sure.”

He ignores the way Tanaka gives him a bared-teeth glare.

Nishinoya laughs. “He’s funny like this, isn’t he?”

“It was _you!_ ”

Several pieces of bread fly in Nishinoya’s direction, all of which he dodges expertly. Kei doesn’t throw anything but he’s damn close to it.

“You guys, don’t make a mess,” Daichi tells the team. “Coach was nice enough to treat us to dinner here, let’s not get kicked out for starting a food fight, hm?”

Everyone voices their agreement.

Daichi turns his head to look at the buffet line where Hinata is currently filling his plate to the max— _again_ —alongside Kageyama. Kei tries not to be annoyed at the sight of them huddled close together.

“Still,” adds Daichi, “if anyone can shut him up…”

Hinata has been talking nonstop for the past half-hour, pausing only to swallow food and water. If it can be considered a pause, really. He’s unusually excitable, even for Hinata, and it’s becoming a bit much.

“¥500 to the person who can pull it off?”

“I’m in.”

“Ooh, me too.”

“Yep.”

Kei shrugs.

He doesn’t need ¥500, and he’s embarrassingly okay with Hinata chattering on like he has been, but he likes to win. So maybe.

Just then, Kageyama returns and plops down next to Yamaguchi on Kei’s right.

“What’s going on?” he asks, already digging into his third heaping bowl of rice.

A few teammates exchange glances.

“Nothing,” Sugawara says.

“Yep. Nothing.”

“You guys there’s all-you-can-eat sashimi and did you see they’ve got western food that’s definitely spaghetti with meatballs this place is so cool I wish we came here all the time after a game—”

“Yes, we saw,” says Daichi, sounding very tired.

Hinata drops his tray in front of his vacated seat, right across from Kei on the long narrow table. He scoots in between Nishinoya and Tanaka, still chattering at hyper-speed.

Kei watches as Nishinoya and Tanaka share a look and a nod before they start offering Hinata food and drink in such rapid succession that Hinata barely has a chance to complete a sentence. They look satisfied with themselves, Kei thinks. Smug, even.

But he knows better.

Hinata swallows the last bite shoved in his mouth by Nishinoya and opens his mouth to say, “Jeez, guys, calm down, I’ll eat everything! Honest!”

And he’s off again, and both Tanaka and Nishinoya’s shoulders slump in defeat.

Sugawara makes his own attempt, which fails, and then Yamaguchi dares Hinata to be quiet for the rest of the meal—and that lasts for two minutes at most before Hinata launches into a play-by-play of the practice match they’re returning from.

Daichi pushes his face into his hands.

Then:

“Oy, Tsukki, you haven’t even finished your first plate!”

Kei sighs loudly. “Unlike you, I don’t have a bottomless pit for a stomach.”

“Hah? If you don’t eat after a game your muscles will be all strained the next day, you know!”

“Oh, shut up. I’m still eating.”

“Barely!”

“Excuse me if I don’t go as fast as you,” Kei snaps. “I actually want to taste it first.”

“Captain!” says Hinata. “Tell Tsukki to eat more!”

Daichi lifts his head and examines Kei’s plate. “Hm. You haven’t eaten all that much tonight, have you?”

Kei glowers at him. “Can I just eat how I want to, please?”

This is probably his least favorite part of eating out with the team. Sure, free food is always nice, but just because Kei doesn’t eat like a savage doesn’t mean he’s not getting his fill. He’d rather not be sick on the car ride back to school, if it’s all the same to everyone, and anyway, since when did table manners stop being important?

Hinata waves his chopsticks at Kei from across the narrow table. “Come on, Tsukki, you need to at least finish your plate!”

“I’m _planning_ on it,” he says through gritted teeth.

There’s a small cluster of rice stuck to the ends of Hinata’s chopsticks. Kei follows it with his eyes.

“Well eat up, then, or you won’t grow!”

“I don’t want to hear that from _you._ ”

Hinata scowls. “Hey!”

“Oh, did I touch a nerve? _Shortie?_ ”

“Just eat, damn it, Tsukishima!”

Kei presses his lips together and—before he give his impulse proper thought—leans over and catches Hinata’s chopsticks in between his teeth. He slides the cluster of rice off the ends and, looking up at Hinata, takes the rice fully into his mouth. He chews and swallows before licking the corners of his lips, never breaking eye contact.

Hinata is utterly still, and quiet, and Kei knows he’s won ¥500 then and there.

“Thanks for the food, then,” Kei says, and sits up straight.

He returns to picking at his plate in his usual, leisurely fashion for several long seconds, and when he glances back up at the silent Hinata he finds that the shortie’s face is glowing several shades past red. Upon renewed eye contact, Hinata sinks his head between his arms and all but curls up into a ball at the table. He doesn’t make a sound once.

Kei smirks and is about to take another bite of his food when he sees Tanaka and Nishinoya’s expressions from their seats on either side of Hinata.

They don’t say anything, but Kei knows what they’re thinking:

_Yeah, you shut him up, but that was a little…_

A quick survey of the table reveals all of his teammates have that same expression. Except for Kageyama, who is blissfully ignorant and eating like nothing happened.

Kei feels his cheeks go warm.

“What?” he says.

Suddenly no one is looking at him, and Kei’s chest feels awfully tight as he looks at the balled-up Hinata across from him.

_Oh._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's some more cute nonsense, I guess? This was a scene I'd been wanting to write for a while. And if you're wondering, yes, Tsukki did have a revelation right at the end there.


	13. Gravel to Tempo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew. Sorry about the long wait. Almost done!

Kei traces his fingers along the characters he’s written in a fat black marker. There’s a knot in his stomach and every breath he takes in is tainted with something tense and gently painful.

He doesn’t know _why._

Or…he _does,_ it just doesn’t make total sense.

Rather than think about it, Kei goes back to staring at the club room door. He hears a slight rattling that he knows is from the slim CD case in his hand. Because, weirdly, his hand is trembling.

_Stop it, stop it, stop it,_ he tells himself. There’s no chance it’ll work—in the last couple of weeks he’s found this out the hard way. He can’t make his nerves, or anything else, go away just by internally screaming at himself.

The club room door slams open.

“…And your direct spikes are still sloppy!” Kageyama is snarling.

“I already know all this!” Hinata snaps back. “What, you don’t think I’m working on it?”

“I think you’re a shitty player!”

“ _Hah?_ Say that to my face, you punk!”

Kageyama and Hinata begin hitting at each other. They haven’t even noticed Kei.

Typical. These two get into a fight and nothing else registers. Honestly, if they were any stupider, Kei thinks they wouldn’t have survived this long. Beyond that, it’s just embarrassing.

Just then, Daichi follows the idiot pair through the door.

“Enough,” he says, and while it’s not at top ‘terrifying captain’ volume, it gets the job done. Hinata and Kageyama separate from each other. “You two can pick this up at morning practice. Now cut it out.”

Both of them mutter a muted, “yes, captain,” before turning to their respective cubbies.

Daichi sighs and looks up. “Huh, Tsukishima,” he says. “I thought you’d gone home already.”

“Not yet,” says Kei. “I’m…um…” he tucks the CD case behind his back. “I’m waiting.”

“Well…okay then.”

“Mm.”

Kei glances over at Hinata and sees Hinata whip his head away. The ball of whatever-it-is that’s stuck in his stomach roils and tightens. _Crap._ He’s no good at these sorts of things.

Clearing his throat, Kei calls over, “Hey, shrimp, meet me outside, okay?”

Hinata doesn’t look at him. But he nods.

Kei releases a heavy breath and trudges past his teammates and captain, and closes the club room door when he exits. For a few seconds he just stands there, awkwardly waiting outside the door. Then he takes off at top speed to clamber down the stairs, where he leans against the wall and takes up the chorus of “ _stop it_ ” in his head again.

Barely a minute passes before he hears, “Tsukki?”

Kei looks down, where he expects to see Hinata, and then looks up.

Hinata is standing on one of the steps so that their eyes are level with each other. It’s…

“Um!” Kei looks down and strains to keep his face in complete neutral. “I have something for you.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Here.” He all but pushes the CD case into Hinata’s chest.

Hinata takes it and examines the writing.

“Tsukishima’s Playlist?” he reads off in confusion.

“You asked…” Kei steels himself. “You asked, a little while ago, if you could have a copy of the playlist you listened to, so…well, that’s what this is.”

“You made this for me?”

“It’s just a burnt CD, the playlist was already—”

“Thank you.”

Kei wrings his hands together. “You’re welcome,” he says slowly.

It’s just so incredibly _difficult_ to look at Hinata’s face right now. He looks soft and happy and really, irritatingly cute as he continues to stare down at the CD case, and that’s doing things to the knot in Kei’s stomach that he would really rather not happen.

He likes Hinata.

In _that way._

That’s something he’s figured out recently, at the worst moment possible, because the entire team was watching and Kei is such a private person.

He likes Hinata.

And Hinata likes him.

That’s also something he’s figured out.

Well, those two revelations are sort of the same thing, aren’t they? They’re all mixed up together, two things that are one thing, depending on where you stand. When Kei understood one thing, he understood the other.

The problem is, well, what is he supposed to _do_ about it?

“I put a track list inside,” Kei blurts out after the silence stretches on too long between them. “In English, too, in case you need a translation? I know you suck at English.”

“Hey,” Hinata says. “Yachi says my English is much better than it used to be.” It sounds like he’s trying to be snappy, but the gentle smile on his face ruins the effect.

Kei doesn’t mind. He likes snappy Hinata and soft Hinata both.

…Oh, _gross._ Gross. He’s so embarrassingly sappy these days, it’s disgusting. At least he’s not saying this crap out loud where other people can hear him.

“Still,” he says. “In case you need it.”

“Thanks, Tsukki.”

“Mm.”

“Do you…” Hinata takes a second to tuck his new CD into his backpack, swinging it around to his side and ducking his face away. “Um, do you want to get something to eat? A snack or something?”

“Oh…um, sure,” says Kei.

Is his face red? It’s probably red. It certainly feels hot.

“Okay! Okay, good.” Hinata swings his backpack around again and straightens. He’s definitely pink-cheeked. “Anywhere you want to go?”

“You asked me, stupid.”

“I mean, you know—as a thank you sort of thing.”

“You pick.”

“Ramen?”

Kei snorts. “Pick something _healthy,_ you idiot.”

Hinata jumps from the step to the space next to Kei and locks his fingers behind his head as they set off. “Meat buns aren’t that much healthier, and we have those all the time.”

“Yeah, but those are smaller.”

“So you want some meat buns?”

“I guess.”

They walk in silence that fluctuates between tense and comfortable for a few minutes.

There’s something deliberately solitary about this excursion, something intimate that makes Kei want to ask whether or not this is a date. Since he’s never been on a date, he doesn’t know what qualifies. At least he’s eight percent sure that Hinata’s never been on a date, either.

But there was that one girl who asked him out, so maybe there have been more…

No. Kei can’t believe that a volleyball idiot like Hinata would have made time to go on dates with someone when he could be practicing instead. And that poor girl had to all but hit him over the head before Hinata understood what she wanted.

So, instead of asking that, Kei fills the silence by saying:

“Kageyama was right, you know. Your direct spikes are awful.”

“Oh, shut up,” says Hinata. “I don’t want to hear it from you, too.”


	14. Heartlines

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey y'all thanks for your patience on this, here's the last chapter...

“Hey.”

Kei looks up. “Hey.”

Hinata hands him a bottle of water, which Kei takes gratefully, nodding.

“Good job, earlier,” Hinata says.

“Thanks. You too.”

Kei watches as Hinata sits down next to him on the steps outside the gym, the winter sun beating down on them. It’s been a strenuous Saturday practice so far, only halfway through now, and Kei unscrews the bottle cap and drinks the cold water in relief.

His entire right side buzzes with some bizarre spacial awareness of Hinata next to him. Kei focuses on keeping his pulse at a somewhat normal pace, regulating his breathing and pretending that he’s just fine, really, instead of stupidly nervous.

All the time. He’s near Hinata _all the time._ Why does he keep reacting like this? Not to mention the perpetual tug in his chest at the mere thought of this idiot midget.

Hinata’s fingers lace together. “So,” he says, “your blocks are getting better. They’re really cool.”

“Thanks,” Kei says, trying not to feel so damn flustered.

“Where are you learning how to block like that?”

“My brother’s team.”

“Whaaaat?” Hinata’s teeth gnash together and he stares at Kei with something terrifying in his eyes. “You’re practicing with _adults?_ ”

“Yeah.”

Hinata looks ten seconds away from panting and drooling. He’s such a freak about volleyball. “I wanna come with you next time!” he says.

“Nope.”

“Hah? Why not?”

“Because I said so.”

“Jeez, Tsukishima, do you not want to spend time with me?”

Kei takes another long swig of water before replying. “No, stupid, but you can’t just barge into things without being invited.”

“So ask if I can be invited. Your brother likes me, right?”

He sighs.

Akiteru, for some reason, _does_ like Hinata. He thinks the shrimp is funny, and he’s taken to teasing Kei about his friendship with Hinata. If Akiteru ever finds out that Kei likes Hinata as something other than a friend, Kei might have to kill himself.

Meaning, Hinata absolutely cannot come join Kei when he goes to Sendai to work with his brother’s team. Also, Kei might have to preemptively murder his own brother.

“Oy, you practice with the old coach Ukai, right?” he asks Hinata. “I don’t come to those sessions. Why do you have to come to my outside practice?”

“That’s…” Hinata slumps. “That’s different. That’s not blocking.”

“Oh, so I can’t practice spikes?”

“That’s not what I’m saying!”

Kei rubs at his face. He doesn’t want to get into a fight with Hinata. “I can practice blocking with you, if that’s what you want.”

“With your brother’s—”

“No, just you and me.”

Hinata turns pink. “Just us?”

He smirks. “Oh?”

“Sh-shut up, Tsukishima.”

Kei reaches over and ruffles Hinata’s hair. “I promise I’ll go easy on you, shrimp.”

“Don’t you dare!”

“You’re _supposed_ to say ‘please take care of me,’ you idiot.”

“Why should I—”

Hinata falters when Kei drops his hand and lets his fingers play with the soft, curling hairs on the nape of Hinata’s neck.

Oh, god.

Oh, god, what the heck is he doing? Is he flirting? This is really extreme. Kei can feel his heart banging against his ribcage, can feel his legs trembling a little. He takes in a deep breath to steady himself, and even his breath is shaky.

Hinata’s face and neck are cherry red. Kei doubts he’s much better.

“Um,” Hinata breathes.

“Shut up,” says Kei. “You’ll ruin it.”

“Oh, _I’ll_ ruin it? You’re the one telling me to shut up while you…while you…”

Hinata turns his face toward Kei and presses his forehead against Kei’s shoulder, and Kei is left staring at the top of Hinata’s head, a close up of the hair he’s been running his fingers through on accident and on purpose for months now.

Kei’s heart is in his throat. He doesn’t…what is he supposed to do _now?_

“Hey,” he hears Hinata say, muffled against Kei’s shirt sleeve. “You know, I…”

“Yeah,” Kei says in a scratchy voice he doesn’t recognize as his own.

“Mm.”

“Me too.”

“Yeah?”

“Uh huh.”

“So…” Silence. And then: “Why won’t you let me practice with your brother’s team, then?”

“Oh my god, you’re so annoying.” It comes out much less scathing than Kei intends.

A hand—Hinata’s hand—tugs at the hem of Kei’s shirt. “Tsukki,” he says. He doesn’t follow it up with anything, and Kei’s heartrate picks up dramatically as his shirt stays fisted in Hinata’s small grip.

After a few minutes, Kei glances toward the closed gym doors.

They should be heading back inside soon. They shouldn’t be outside in the cold for too long, not after so much exercise. They’ll get sick.

But Kei isn’t cold at all, and the places where he’s touching Hinata feel like they’re burning from the other boy’s heat. Hinata might as well be a miniature ball of sunlight for how much heat he’s giving off.

Kei doesn’t mind it at all.

His fingers are still in Hinata’s hair. A wild impulse grabs at him, and Kei restrains himself from bending his head down to press a kiss to Hinata’s hair whorl.

Too soon. Too weird. Way too cutesy, and diving into territory Kei doesn’t ever want to explore. He refuses to be an obnoxious PDA couple with Hinata.

Besides, they’re not even a couple yet.

Yet.

“That playlist you made,” Hinata says, and finally looks up at Kei with wide, large eyes. “I liked it.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Mm. Make me another one sometime?”

“Sure,” says Kei, and for once he doesn’t bother hiding the small smile that cracks his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tsukishima's Playlist:  
> Genghis Khan - Miike Snow  
> Wrong Time Wrong Planet - Does It Offend You, Yeah?  
> Reasons to Stay Inside (feat. Goddamn Electric Bill) - Immoor  
> Africa - Toto  
> Gimme Sympathy - Metric  
> Warm Blood - Carly Rae Jepsen  
> Lovefool - The Cardigans  
> From Eden - Hozier  
> Stolen Dance - Milky Chance  
> Reality (feat. Janieck Devy) - Lost Frequencies  
> Circles - machineheart  
> Habits of My Heart - Jaymes Young  
> Gravel to Tempo - Hayley Kiyoko  
> Heartlines - Broods
> 
> I'll be on my [tumblr](http://gibberishism.tumblr.com) if u wanna chat...or possibly yell at me...

**Author's Note:**

> Hi!! Y'all this is amazing: [dreamer1084](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamer1084/pseuds/dreamer1084) (tumblr is [here](http://dreamer1084.tumblr.com)) is doing a Chinese translation of this fic. This is, of course, the first time anyone has ever done a translation of anything I've written, so I am ridiculously excited and flattered!!! I believe they'll be doing a translation for all the tsukihina fics I have posted so far as well... this is A Lot to take in for me but if you can read Chinese please support their hard work!! Thank you!


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